A Hard Choice

We have decided to move towards a predominantly vegetarian diet with cessations/flex times of oily fish or humanely raised, GMO free meat. We are doing it for health. We are doing it for the environment. We are doing it for ethical reasons. We used to eat 75% of our meals with some kind of dairy or meat. Our goal is to change that to 75% veggies. (The breakdown is maybe a piece of fish a week, a few eggs here and there and maybe a cut of meat on rare occasion...the rest green.) By doing this just 75% of the time, we calculated that in just our little apartment, with two people, we could save 648k gallons water in a year and countless other health benefits—besides being better examples to our students and family.

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

Something funny happens when you try to think about saving the health of the people you love and taking better care of yourself. It makes you take stock in your own life. After I lost Mom, I was ready to go...and felt the waiting in between was just biding time until I saw her again. But, after a year of grief, I've decided to make my time here count and to maybe even look forward to getting a little older, teaching and pouring into other people. Stephen is happy to hear this and see this change in me. :)

Eating right is hard when all you've known is the opposite. Exercising and taking care of your body is scary when it feels insurmountable to change how you've looked and felt for years. But, I think it's worth the research, the hard work, the extra money, the time...I think we need to work to bring visibility to poverty and hunger in this country and it starts with valuing what we put on our own plates.

I'm giving myself grace in this, but...here....goes....nothin'....